|
Each morning that we wake up, life presents us with
many choices. Some people are conscious of these choices,
others are not. Whether one is a college student in search of a
major or the man in line at a deli, the opportunity for decision
seems solely one’s own. However, the surrounding factors of
that person’s life will inevitably affect the decision at hand.
Often, without knowing it, we are placed in a role that life,
in general, expects us to fulfill. Once we find ourselves in a
role, it is difficult to displace ourselves from it, and as a result,
we rely on this role to aid us in our decisions. Professor of
psycology Philip K. Zimbardo finds that people are obedient
in accepting roles assigned by others. Zimbardo’s “Stanford
Prison Experiment” discusses male college students placed in
a prision experiment and assigned the role of either “prisoner”
of “guard.” Zimbardo claims to have “sought to understand
more about the process by which people called ‘prisoners’
lose their liberty, civil rights, independence and privacy,
while those called ‘guards’ gain social power by accepting
the responsiblity for controlling and managing the lives of
their dependent charges” (365).
Zimbardo concludes that the roles of guard and prisoner
can be seen in many realms of life. Zimbardo suggests
that sexism, racism, and shyness are, for many people, prisons
of the mind. Futhermore, Zimbardo feeels that marriage can
be described as a prison:
The physical institution of prison is but a concrete
and steel metaphor for the existance of more pervasive,
albeit less obvious, prisons of the mind that
all of us daily create, populate and perpetuate ... The
social convention of marraige ... becomes for many
a state of imprisonment in which one partner agrees
to be prisoner or guard, forcing or allowing the
other to play the reciprocal role—invariably without
making the contract explicit (375).
A prisoner-guard relationship in marriage is demonstrated
by such literary pieces as William Shakespeare’s Macbeth.
Macbeth, a tragedy set in Scotland, discusses one nobleman’s
ambitious quest for the crown, ultimately resulting in his
own loss of morals and honor by murdering King Duncan,
who is his kinsman. However, Macbeth’s eventual ruin is a
consequence of choices affected by his role in life and the
decisions that correlate with this position. More precisely, the
play traces how Macbeth and Lady Macbeth each experience
and, in a way, become both prisoner and guard, according
to Zimbardo’s characterization of the roles of prisoner and
guard within a prison environment.
During the Renaissance in England, marriage
customs provided that the male would assume dominance,
making major decisions and controlling the direction
of the relationship. Contrary to this stereotype, William
Shakespeare introduces Lady Macbeth as a superior female
who is comfortable with her capacity for control. At the start
of the play, Lady Macbeth is guard to her prisoner husband,
Macbeth. Upon learning that Macbeth has been appointed
Thane of Cawdor, Lady Macbeth’s dangerous ambition
consumes her: “Come, you spirits/That tend on mortal
thoughts, unsex me here/ And fill me from the crown to
the toe top-full/ Of direst cruelty”(1.6.41-44). Lady Macbeth
demonstrates her strength with these words, along with her
willingness to control her husband’s fate. Parallel to and, in a
way, explaining Lady Macbeth’s sadistic manner, Zimbardo’s
guards possessed a desire to control those prisoners under
their authority. One guard boasts, “‘I made sure I was one of
the guards on the yard, because this was my first chance for
the type of manipulative power that I really like—being a
very noticed figure with almost complete control over what is
said or not’”(Zimbardo 373). Perhaps Lady Macbeth does not
achieve the level of satisfaction found in Zimbardo’s guard;
nonetheless, she does not hesitate to act as guard within the
realms of marriage.
During the “Stanford Prison Experiment,” Zimbardo
considers a prevailing characteristic among all prisoners:
“Over time, the prisoners began to react passively … they
stopped resisting, questioning”(371). Lady Macbeth is also
aware of her husband’s passive tendencies, acknowledging,
“I fear thy nature/ … Thou woulds’t be great/ Art not without
ambition, but without/ The illness should attend it”(1.5.17-
21). Though Lady Macbeth doubts her husband within these
lines, she also finds his submissive nature to be beneficial
to her intentions. Pardoxically, if Macbeth’s compliance
might prevent him from carrying out murder, then his same
submission will ultimately guarantee obedience to Lady
Macbeth’s orders. With this insight, Lady Macbeth suggests
to her husband, “You shall put/ This night’s great business
into my dispatch”(1.5.68-69).
Later, knowing that Macbeth lacks enthusiasm at
the opportunity to kill his king and steal the crown, Lady
Macbeth, acting as guard, taunts Macbeth, who is prisoner,
arousing a fear of unmanliness:
Was the hope drunk
Wherein you dressed yourself? Hath it slept since?
And wakes it now, to look so green and pale
At what it did so freely? From this time
Such I account they love. Art thou afeard
To be the same in thine own act and valor
As thou art in desire? (1.7.35-41)
Attempting to avoid the possibility that he may look like a
coward, Macbeth unknowingly displays his beaten spirit: “I
am settled, and bend up/ Each corporal agent to this terrible
feat”(1.7.79-80). Just as Lady Macbeth causes Macbeth to
question himself, a guard in Zimbardo’s experiment creates
a similar scenario in which a prisoner feels the need to please
his guard. When Prisoner 819 was to be prematurely released,
a guard arranged for the other prisoners to chant, “‘819 is a
bad prisoner. Because of what 819 did to prison property
we all must suffer’”(Zimbardo 372). Sadly, the prisoner was
prepared to return to prison. Zimbardo remarks that the
prisoner “could not leave as long as the others thought he
was a ‘bad prisoner’ … he had to prove to them he was not
a ‘bad’ prisoner”(372). Clearly, Macbeth and Prisoner 819 had
to prove to their guards that they were worthy prisoners. For
Prisoner 819, this meant returning to prison, but for Macbeth,
pleasing his guard entailed the act of murder.
Due to this desire to fulfill Lady Macbeth’s demands,
Macbeth follows through with the murder of the king. Yet,
in doing so, Macbeth loses his own personal liberty, which
Zimbardo describes as part of the process of becoming a
prisoner. However, Macbeth makes an interesting transition
at this point in the play. Rather than fall further into his role
as prisoner, Macbeth draws upon his inner strength and
changes his marital role. Killing another human being can
have tremendous effect on one’s psychological well-being;
for Macbeth, it means he knows that the man he once was
he can no longer be. He says, “To know my deed, ‘twere best
not know myself”(2.2.72). With these words, Macbeth leaves
his role as a prisoner behind and assumes the role of guard.
A guard, who was a previously decent person, given the
opportunity for control, violence, and the encouragement of
the role itself, experiences a similar transition in Zimbardo’s
experiment:
“It’s almost like a prison that you create yourself – you
get into it, and it becomes almost the definition you
make of yourself, it almost becomes the walls, and
you want to break out …. To tell everyone that ‘this
isn’t me at all and I’m not the person that’s confined in
there – I’m a person who wants to get out and show
you that I am free”’ (371).
Luckily, for this guard, his role was only temporary. Upon the
experiment’s end, he could reclaim his previous attitude and
carry on with his life.
When Macbeth becomes the guard, Lady Macbeth,
is assigned the role of prisoner and loses the role of guard.
As the play progresses, she becomes consumed with guilt,
and her conscience finally acknowledges the seriousness of
murder: “Here’s the smell of blood still. All the perfumes of
Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. O, O, O!”(5.1.53-55).
Still, Lady Macbeth does not know that she has been removed
from her role as guard; instead, she can focus only upon her
inner fears, which build the walls of her prison of marriage.
Macbeth, who once closely adhered to the advice of his
wife, no longer cares what Lady Macbeth thinks and feels.
When Lady Macbeth’s doctor informs Macbeth of his wife’s
disturbing sleepwalking, Macbeth responds, “Cure her of
that./ Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased …”(5.3.39-
40). Here, Macbeth orders the doctor, better displaying
his new authority than being troubled by his wife’s loss of
sanity. He continues, “Throw physic to the dogs! I’ll none of
it./ Come, put mine armor on. Give me my staff/ … If thou
couldst, doctor, cast/ The water of my land, find her disease …”
(5.3.47-51). Having assumed the role as king, Macbeth
has also become Lady Macbeth’s guard. In contrast to Lady
Macbeth’s performance as guard, Macbeth, as guard, chooses
not to tend to the circumstances of his wife in a loving,
husbandly way. Rather, when speaking to her doctor, he is
distracted and can only focus upon putting his armor on to
prepare for battle. Zimbardo would describe Macbeth as
“accepting the responsibility for controlling and managing
the lives of (his) dependent charges”(365), here subjects such
as Seyton and, more importantly, Lady Macbeth.
Both Zimbardo and Shakespeare prompt us to
examine and consider what role life has assigned us, either by
our own will or at the hand of someone else. Zimbardo makes
a reflective connection between the relationship of husband
and wife and that of prisoner and guard. His comparison of
two presumably unrelated areas of life, marriage and prison,
arouses questions in the minds of all who consider such
an association. Although working in an imaginative genre,
Macbeth suggests that Zimbardo’s theory can be applied to
some marriages. Roles do help in determining our actions
and behavior in life. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, as husband
and wife, eventually develop and play the roles of prisoner
and guard.
Works Cited
Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. Ed. Sylvan Barnet. New
York:
Signet Classic, 1998.
Zimbardo, Phillip K. “The Stanford Prison Experiment.” Writing
and Reading Across the Curriculum. Ed.
Laurence
Behrens and Leonard J. Rosen. New York: Addison
Wesley Longman, Inc., 2000. 363-375.
|